Replay 'Verse Ficlets and Drabbles
by Unforgotten
Summary: Individual short fics set in the same universe as Replay and Numbers.
1. Charlie Bit Me

**Author's Note:** Each "chapter" here is an individual short fic set in my Replay 'verse. Suggested reading order: 1. Replay, 2. Numbers, 3. these ficlets.

**Charlie Bit Me**

**October 1963 (2)  
**At bedtime, Erik is nowhere to be seen, and when Charles flips the light on he sees that there's a pair of red silk pajamas lying folded on his side of the bed.

"_Really_," he says to no one in particular. "This is _ridiculous_."

But he puts them on anyway, and can't seem to keep himself from snickering.

* * *

As soon as he's nearly asleep, he's awoken by a finger poking rudely at his shoulder.

"Do wake up, Charles, and don't try to struggle," Erik says, and Charles can hear the grin in his voice.

"Oh Erik, please don't hurt me," Charles responds, and he can't help it, he's snickering again. "Really, Erik, don't you think you ought to cover my mouth or something? I might _scream_."

"...I'm not that stupid."

**October 1963 (1)**

"I'm really very sorry, Erik," Charles says. "Though I have to admit I don't know what you _expected _me to do."

Erik has a bandage wrapped around one hand and a prescription for an antibiotic crumpled in the other as he drives; his face is stony under the streetlights they pass under.

"I didn't," he manages through clenched teeth, "want you waking the house. That's all."

"_Telepath_," Charles reminds him, tersely. "I could wake every house in 250 miles if I _wanted _to, without ever opening my mouth."

Erik is silent for a few minutes, then finally says, "Did they buy the story?"

Charles doesn't think anyone in the world would have bought the story, considering that it consisted of 'Charles, here, fell out of his wheelchair and landed on my hand. With his mouth.'

"Well," he says, "no one thought of 'kidnapping', but the nurse thought it might be a 'weird sex thing.'"

This is the absolutely wrong thing to say, for Erik's thoughts immediately light up the air with want and need and pain and _Charles_.

Not that half of everything hasn't always been the wrong thing to say; not that three-fourths of everything won't be, now. Charles will never be quite sure what will or won't set Erik off.

'It's been a _year_,' Charles wants to protest. 'And we only knew each other for _two _damned months, and we never even...how can you still - what is _wrong _with you?'

But that would be cruel, and the inside of Erik's head is cruel enough already; Charles can't bear to make it worse.

"I disabused her of the notion; she now thinks it's a dog bite, which you don't wish to report because you got it burgling someone's house. Good thing you gave an alias, isn't it? Though don't worry, I did make sure the name on the prescription is different so you'll be able to fill it. I wouldn't want you dying of infection, after all."

Charles is not entirely certain why he shouldn't want Erik to die of infection, all things considered; but he doesn't.

"Now please, take me home. I'm really very tired."

"I thought we might do some catching up," Erik answers, sounding stricken, and there's grief and guilt and _he must hate me _in the air, along with a nice toxic dose of _well, shouldn't he?  
_  
'I don't _hate _you,' Charles could say, wants to say; but that's so wound up with everything else inside Erik that admitting knowing that would be tantamount to admitting knowing all the rest, and that he won't do.

So what he says instead is, "Well, I suppose we could at that," and ignores Erik's thoughts then as they tumble delightedly in the air around him. "Is Raven well?"

She won't answer any of his letters, and stopped responding to Hank's upon learning from whom Charles had finagled the address of her post-office box. Not that it could have taken much learning, given Hank is the only one she's written to begin with.

Charles catches the _I shouldn't_ from Erik, but then Erik begins, hesitantly, to speak of Raven; little things, only, but it's enough to make Charles want to weep. And if he wanted to weep before he ever asked after her, well, it's not worth examining why.

**October 1963 (2)**

They never even manage to make it off the bed, for Charles drags Erik down and Erik doesn't protest, his hands roaming over the silk and then under it, so desperately, much more so than usual, anymore.

"If we're _going _to roleplay, we might want to try to do a little better at it next time," Charles says somewhat breathlessly, right after they've both finished.

"..._I _thought it went well," Erik says.

Charles makes a face, and projects it for good measure since Erik can't very well make it out in the dark like this. "_You _think all sex, ever, should go on right in this room."

"I _like _this room," Erik protests. "It's been very...accommodating."

"Well, I thought we were _going _somewhere. Surely you have fantasies of fucking me in some seedy hotel room?"

"...Not particularly," Erik says. "But if that's what you want - maybe next year?"

"I look forward to it." Charles runs through what Erik has just said, then adds, in horror, "Please tell me you don't think today is our anniversary."

"...You've had forty-one years to file a complaint if you didn't like it. It's a little late now," Erik says, testily.

Charles sighs. "I'm not sure why I ever thought you might be high maintenance. Really, no idea."


	2. Snazzy

**Snazzy**

**October 1963 (1)**

"I have a question for you," Charles says when they're almost back to the house.

"What?" Erik says, giving Charles an expectant look, like he hopes the question will be "Do you want to get a room?" (on further contemplation, Charles realizes that's exactly what heﾒs hoping for; a realization helped along by Erik's mind singing it out so very loudly).

"Your, ah, cape," Charles manages, cheeks going hot as it takes him a minute to remember just what he was going to ask.

"What about it," Erik says.

"Why is it necessary, again? Really, Erik, it's gotten closed in the door every time youﾒve gotten in or out of the car. And you've stepped on it several times as well, and you almost got twisted up in it when you did that dramatic flair thing as we were leaving the hospital. It seems to be a great deal of trouble for no gain that _I _can see."

"When I want your opinion about my wardrobe, I'll ask for it," Erik says; but though his jaw is clenched, his thoughts are crestfallen, deflated.

Ridiculous as the cape is (and it's very nearly as awful as the paint job on the helmet), Charles still feels bad; and so he says, in what he hopes is an encouraging manner, "I really prefer the turtleneck look, myself. You canﾒt go wrong in a turtleneck."

Erik brightens, a little.

More telling is that the next year when he comes, neither helmet nor cape is anywhere to be seen; and in all the years to follow, he always comes to kidnap Charles wearing a turtleneck.


	3. Break a Leg

**Break a Leg**

**November 1962 (2)**

Charles puts up the Christmas tree on the first day it occurs to him that he can, now.

"But it's not even Thanksgiving yet," Raven protests. "Who starts decorating for Christmas before _Thanksgiving_?"

As Charles sets the ladder up, he tells her, "I'm trendsetting, just you wait."

He can practically hear her rolling her eyes as she wanders off.

* * *

It is, perhaps, inevitable that a section of the lights gets stuck in a branch Charles can't reach from his current position. So he leans over a little, then a little more, and a little more, and he's just about got it when the world goes a bit sideways -

The tree does not break his fall; rather the opposite. And when Charles hits the ground, he hears a peculiar popping sound, like one might get when stepping on a plastic Coca-Cola bottle, the kind that don't appear to be in production quite yet.

Charles realizes in a distant sort of way that he may have screamed, either aloud or not, when Erik comes rushing in, face draining completely of blood when he sees the position Charles is in.

"Can you -" he begins.

"Yes I can, thanks, and it bloody fucking _hurts_," Charles snaps.

* * *

Charles hates hospitals, having spent far too much time having pneumonia in them over the past few decades. Therefore, when Erik goes into a monosyllabic black sulk the second it's confirmed that Charles' leg is in fact broken, it seems like a completely unnecessary attitude to Charles.

So, the moment they're home and alone, he says, "Alright, Erik, out with it."

"...One week," Erik says.

"Oh, is that all it's been?" Charles says, trying to make light of it.

Erik is having none of that. "One _week_," he repeats.

"Well, Erik," Charles says, "I hadn't been up on a ladder in forty years. I'd rather forgotten how they work."

"..._Gravity_," Erik says, which is a point.

"Well, physics never has been my strong suit, has it?"

"You have a Ph.D. in physics," says Erik through gritted teeth.

"Actually, it's in biophysics," Charles corrects. "And I don't any _more_."

Erik just stares at him, incredulously; then walks out, shaking his head and muttering under his breath. Charles has a feeling he knows exactly what he's muttering about, and is grateful he didn't say it, because 'you could have broken your back, you could have broken your neck,' is not something he particularly wants to dwell on.

When Erik then proceeds to melt or smash every ladder on the premises depending on their composition, Charles considers that it to be a bit of an excessive overreaction on his part.

**December 1962 (2)**

"It _itches_," Charles says, though he's already informed Erik of this at least three other times since they've gone to bed.

"I can break the other one for you," Erik offers, having at no point during all this shown anything like sympathy towards Charles' plight (Charles is fully aware of why, of Erik's fears; but it still stings, a bit).

Charles lies there in the dark and tries to resist any more futile scratching at his cast.

* * *

That night, Charles dreams that there's a very large grape under his skin, moving down the back of his leg, and it _hurts _-

And he starts awake and it still hurts, and oh; he manages, somehow, to stumble out of bed, and thankfully the cramp releases the second he's standing, though it still leaves an awful ache behind.

"What's wrong?" Erik asks sharply.

"Nothing," Charles says. "So glad to hear that you care now."

"...What's wrong?" Erik says after a short pause; softly, this time.

"I had a cramp in my calf," Charles says, _trying _not to sound pathetic because really, he's happy, he really is happy to be able to feel his cramps; it's just that it's quite a bit easier to be philosophical about itching, cramping and stubbed toes after the fact. "It's gone now, so sorry to have woken you, you can commence to sleeping again now."

Erik sighs.

Once Charles is back in bed, he somehow ends up with his leg in Erik's lap, Erik kneading and massaging the hurt out of his calf. He's frowning, Charles knows, though he can't see his face in the dark, or feel anything from his mind.

"Your hands feel heavenly," Charles says, because they do, and feels that Erik's frown is slightly less frown-y upon this statement.

Just a minute or two later, Erik's hands start having an entirely different effect, and after thinking it over a moment, Charles says, "Erik, I have another itch, would you please scratch it?"

It's not a fantastic line, as lines go, ranking perhaps several notches up from 'you can fuck me' at best. But Charles has always been just a bit lazy, and his lines don't _have _to be good with Erik.

Erik chuckles, and Charles imagines the frown to be all gone now as one of Erik's hands start sliding up his leg, the other continuing to work on his calf. When Erik reaches Charles' knee, his hand pauses lightly on it, and he says, "...Tell me more, about my hands."

Charles does; and Erik's hand slides up and up and up.

And that's better. Though his other leg _still _itches.


	4. Recast

**Recast**

**December 1962 (2)**

When Platt comes to the house to visit for the first time - bringing the blueprints for Cerebro and his daughter along with him - Charles does his absolute best to keep 'it's so adorable that you have a human friend, Erik' from showing on his face. Erik makes Charles' effort rather difficult, by speaking animatedly to the man one minute, cooling off and eying him as though he expects to be bitten the next; rinse and repeat.

Charles observes the proceedings from across the room, pretending to be enthralled by some of Hank's work lined up on the shelf (it really is brilliant, as ever, but Charles has seen it all before).

Hank himself is nowhere to be found. It's hardly surprising, considering everything; and not for the first time Charles wonders if he shouldn't have chosen differently, in this one thing. Hank has no conception of the relief his other self would have felt, at the reality of Platt's survival; this Hank knows only that he is blue, and that he is ashamed.

Charles is sufficiently distracted that it takes him by surprise when he hears a small voice say, "Hi."

Startled, he glances down to see a young girl standing in front of him. He is shocked to realize, that he _knows _her. Minds are more unique than even fingerprints, easily identified at any age, so that even though he first met her much later in that other life when she was in her forties at least, he knows her now in an instant.

Charles has come across any number of people he knows, these past several months, but never anyone who is younger now than they were when he first encountered them. She's the first, no doubt to be followed by others.

"...Hallo, Theresa," Charles says, in that particular voice he reserves for puppies and small children.

"Why do you have a cast?" she asks him then, cutting right to the chase as children do.

"I'm afraid I fell off a ladder," Charles says with the strangest feeling of _deja vu_; after all, how many times has he fielded similar questions about the _chair_? (As a matter of fact, 'falling off a ladder' had been one of his most often-used fibs about how he came about his injury, after he discovered that telling the truth made some of his students become much more agitated than necessary whenever Erik came to whisk him off.)

"Why were you on a ladder?"

"Because I'm a very silly old man who doesn't know what's good for me," Charles says - euphemistically, Erik's explanation being hardly suited for small pitchers.

Apparently this answer satisfactorily closes that line of questioning, because then Theresa says, "How did you know my name, anyway?"

Charles beams at her, leans down as far as he reasonably feels he can without toppling right over, and says in his most conspiratorial tone that is not the least bit condescending no matter what _certain people _might think, "I was so hoping you'd ask. I know your name without your saying it because I am a telepath, which means I can read your mind." When she looks skeptical on this matter, he adds, "Now, before you say 'there's no such thing as mind reading,' I can prove it. Think of a number and I'll tell you what it is. Alright?"

"...Okay, I thought of one."

Charles looks, then chuckles. "That's really quite clever of you, Theresa, but I'm afraid that 'apple' isn't a number."

Theresa's eyes go very wide, and she runs across the room back toward Platt and Erik, exclaiming, "Daddy, daddy! Guess what!"

* * *

The Theresa that Charles once knew neither like nor trusted mutants, which was more the usual than not when it came to his students' parents. Charles never looked to see what, exactly, the reason was in her case, because by that point in his life he thought he'd heard it all, every potential reasoning behind that sort of thing. To him it never really mattered why. The parents of his students might distrust mutants, but those with eyes opened enough to enroll their child in his school at least cared about _their _mutant, and in the end that was what mattered to him.

It occurs to him now, watching a little girl chatter away at her father with frequent pointing toward Charles, that if he'd looked into her mind at any length when he first met her, he would have found that her reasons came down to the story that broke in the eighties about a covered-up attack on a CIA base in 1962. She'd have been somewhere in her late twenties, early thirties when that was all over the news.

Platt laughs at something Theresa says to him; and Charles, overcome then to the point that swallowing has become laborious, swings himself out into the hallway on his crutches. He only intends to be gone a few moments, but ends up taking several minutes, long enough so that Erik ends up following to check on him.

"I know that girl," Charles says, before Erik can say 'What's wrong?' He's wearying of that, and even moreso of the way Erik looks when he says it, like he more than half expects Charles to strike him, or recoil. "That's Kitty Pryde's mother."

"...That's the one that walks through walls," Erik says.

Charles hesitates, for only a moment. He sees Erik see it, and there's that damned look he was so trying to avoid, though he knows better than to remark upon it; knows that all Erik would say is, 'Don't,' that he'd be an impossible safe to crack for the entire rest of the day.

"Yes," Charles says instead, because trusting Erik means trusting Erik all the time, and that's the only way this thing is going to work, long-term. "That's the one. Now let's go back in before they start wondering where we've gone."

* * *

Over the new few decades, Charles will find that some students he expects to enroll to his school don't, and that he rarely learns for certain whether they were even born this time around, or what circumstances were altered to affect the change. There are others - a surprising number - who enroll that he never knew the first time around, who may or may not have existed formerly.

Kitty Pryde, though, is one of the more confusing ones. She looks the same as he recalls, she's the same age, has the same name and the same parents and the same gift; but yet, though he can never quite put his finger on why, he's never entirely _certain _that she's the same girl.


End file.
